


Morbidity

by roselew



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Death, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 21:01:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roselew/pseuds/roselew
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Morbid’ didn’t really hold much meaning to them anymore.</p><p>Or, perhaps, it did. But their version of ‘morbid’ was considerably worse than most peoples.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Morbidity

‘Morbid’ didn’t really hold much meaning to them anymore.

Or, perhaps, it did. But  _their_ version of ‘morbid’ was considerably worse than most people’s.

It wasn’t morbid, for example, to be faced with more blood than anyone should see in their life or to detach the head of  _something_  to get it dead. It wasn’t morbid to consider how they’d die because it was a real, variable possibility. 

Not that Dean did it a lot; mostly at night when his mind was thick with drink and not tired enough to sleep, while Sam snored in the opposite bed and Dean would lean against his own headboard, drink in hand, and wonder about the creative ways his life might end. It never worried him much. He’d been around death enough to know that it was inevitable and, for them, wasn’t likely to be easy.

 

Sam was 34.

Dean had expected him to have a few more years. Somebody like Sam _should_  have more years. It was as violent and bloody as half of his imagined death scenes but a hundred times worse, and plowing through a dozen demons to get to him somehow made it so much worse. When he was there, on his aching knees with the light and sound of Cas still killing off demons behind him, blood slicking his hands as he braced them against the floor over his brother- so much blood he didn’t know if he could touch him without hurting him so he didn’t.

Sam’s eyes had twitched, blinked, focused and wheeled upward and something tight and hot and horrible clenched in Dean’s chest when Sam’s attempted words bubbled up his throat as blood instead, and he was hushing him, pressing a hand against his cheek and the room was suddenly silent, and Dean’s breath felt too loud and stinging and Sam’s wasn’t, a faint, wiry gasp that caught around fluid in his lungs and stained his lips red and Dean wouldn’t let himself think that this might be it. 

He pressed a hand futilely to a broad wound visible beneath the neckline of Sam’s shirt, seeping through scarlet, felt Sam’s breathing catch, chest shuddering against the pressure and even as blood swelled thickly around his fingers Dean  _wouldn’t let this be it._  He told Sam so, patting his cheek with a shaking hand and telling him things Dean wouldn’t remember later ( _you’ll be fine, it’s okay, you did so good, Sammy. Ganked those sons’a bitches._ ) and it didn’t occur to him to ask Cas to fix him until after.

Sam’s stuttered “ _Dean,”_ emerged around another spill of blood and twitching fingers, and Dean’s hand fell automatically from Sam’s face to that hand, scratched and bloody but Dean doubted Sam could be in much more pain than now. It wasn’t graceful or peaceful: Sam cried and bled and he was _too young,_ Clutching Dean’s hand like it was the only thing left and, in afterthought, Dean supposed it was. 

Sam’s final breath hurt: seared through Dean like anger and he squeezed his brother’s limp fingers, heard a cracked “ _Sam?,_ ” in his own voice and could have heard Cas’ shaken exhale, had he been concentrating. 

Cas dragged him away minutes-hours later, sent all three of them back to their motel room, smearing enough blood on the carpet to warrant concern. Cas said he’d fix it without Dean asking him, and it was well into the next day before Dean had cried himself dry.

They burned him: silent and tearless at the fireside and Dean had never felt so empty in all his life. Later, he felt dull, muted surprise when Cas didn’t leave, spent the night sat in a desk-chair, not even hiding his watchful gaze. Dean couldn’t sleep.

He was angry for a long time: at himself and demons and Cas and, for a short while, Sam. Because why hadn’t he been there to save him and why hadn’t Cas been there to save him and why didn’t Sam save himself? Why did demons have to take his baby brother and why did it have to happen like this.

But he was never alone. Even if he felt it, so alone that he would curl in on himself to hold himself together, it wouldn’t be long before a pair of cool hands were on him, soothing along the shoulders and over his face and thumbing away his tears, if he shed them. Cas didn’t leave again, never for long, and years later, when Dean was bleeding out of a shotgun wound to the chest (misfired from the clumsy hands of a rookie hunter, of all things) Cas was there, leaning over him and blocking the sky and his eyes were wet, glistening blue and even when Dean could feel his chest tightening, gaze unfocusing and everything condensing down into the back-forth brush of Cas’ thumb over his cheek, he wasn’t afraid. 

Because Cas followed him up, clinging to his soul with a sharp edge of determination and it wasn’t long before they found Sam in the shared memory of a box of stolen cookies when they were kids living in a motel. Sam’s arms were tight enough around him to hurt and when his brother gathered Cas in his arms too, the Angel’s hands settling against Sam’s shoulders with a smile, Dean knew.

They’d be okay.


End file.
